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Файл:Scientific English. Учебно-методическое пособие для подготовки аспирантов к сдаче кандидатского минимума по иностранному языку
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Usually it is preferable to use as much a priori information as possible to
make the model more accurate. Therefore the white-box models are usually
considered easier, because if you have used the information correctly, then the
model will behave correctly. Often the a priori information comes in forms of
knowing the type of functions relating different variables. For example, if we
make a model of how a medicine works in a human system, we know that
usually the amount of medicine in the blood is an exponentially decaying
function. But we are still left with several unknown parameters; how rapidly
does the medicine amount decay, and what is the initial amount of medicine in
blood? This example is therefore not a completely white-box model. These
parameters have to be estimated through some means before one can use the
model.
In black-box models one tries to estimate both the functional form of
relations between variables and the numerical parameters in those functions.
Using a priori information we could end up, for example, with a set of functions
that probably could describe the system adequately. If there is no a priori
information we would try to use functions as general as possible to cover all
different models. An often used approach for black-box models are neural
networks which usually do not make assumptions about incoming data. The
problem with using a large set of functions to describe a system is that
estimating the parameters becomes increasingly difficult when the amount of
parameters (and different types of functions) increases (2100).
Text 15
The Search for Artificial Intelligence
Robert Matthews, a leading UK researcher, outlines his mission
It is one of the most evocative phrases in the lexicon of science: artificial
intelligence, 'AI', the creation of machines that can think. Just the mention of it
conjures up images of HAL, the AI intelligent computer in 2001: A Space
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Odyssey, and C3PO, the chatty, batty robot from Star Wars. For over half a
century, computer scientists have been working towards creating such machines,
spending billions of pounds in the attempt. And hanging over their efforts has
been a challenge set by a British mathematician widely regarded as the father of
AI research: Alan Turing. During the 1930s, Turing showed, in theory at least,
that a 'universal machine' could be built, capable of performing all the tasks of
any special-purpose computing machine. After war-time work on code-breaking,
Turing helped to turn his discovery into the reality of an electronic computer.
But he also believed his proof meant that computers could mimic the action of
the human mind. In 1951, Turing published a prediction: by the end of the
century, computers would be able to hold a five-minute conversation with
humans and fool 30 per cent of them into believing they were dealing with
another human being.
It is a deadline that has come and gone, along with huge amounts of
funding. Yet no computer is remotely close to passing the Turing Test. What
went wrong? Why has no one succeeded in creating AI? In fact, AI is already
here, earning its keep in banks, airports, hospitals, factories - even our own
home and car. It may not be quite what many were led to expect, but then the
story of real life AI is one of misplaced dreams.
When current AI technology is pushed closer to its sci-fi image, the
results can be more irritating than impressive: witness Microsoft's Paperclip
Assistant, and the AI-based 'help-desks' of some high-tech companies. Even
now, 50 years after work began on intelligent machines; only the bravest
customers trust the automated telephone ticketing system at their local cinema
(2084).
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Text 16
Balanced Teaching
To teach is to touch the heart and impel it to action.
Louis Sullivan
The profession of a teacher is very hard and exhausting. It is hard not
only physically but morally as well, because children, who are very sincere,
emotional and responsive, they demand the same in exchange. They sense the
hypocrisy and the disrespect of tutors who try to behave deceitfully. A real teacher
should give a piece of his heart to every student he has; so imagine the size of a
true teacher's heart! It should be the size of the universe. No courses that are being
taught in teacher's training colleges can suggest to the human what piece each child
deserves. Only experience will give the answer to this question.
But what should a person do if he has no such experience? If he has just come
to school and all he has is a mental equipment of Pedagogics, Methodics and
pedagogical techniques? Of course, to gain experience. And the way he can gain
experience is by practice - a kind of trial and error method. To be a young teacher is
doubly hard. All the time a young teacher tries to find a balance between
professionalism and a humane attitude towards his foster-children. This border is
like a compass in the sea of teaching. If a border will be moved to one side, a
tutor can be too liberal with the children, they won't see a strong personality in this
case and won't listen to the teacher and will misbehave. The other extreme is not
permitted either, because as a result, what we will see is not a human being but a
computer for reading lectures and checking knowledge. Some teachers-theorists
suppose that the filling of a border between these two notions is inherent and can't be
found, others think that it can be found with the help of reflection and careful
preparation for each lesson. To my mind both points of view are partly right because
we should have an innate feeling of empathy and reflex just on the basis of it. People
who have no sense of empathy shouldn't go in for teaching at all, especially
teaching in schools and kindergartens (2056).
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Text 17
Distance education
Charles Wedemeyer of the University of Wisconsin–Madison is
considered one of the fathers' of modern distance education in America. From
1964-1968 the Carnegie Foundation funded Wedemeyer's Articulated
Instructional Media Project (AIM) which brought in a variety of
communications technologies aimed at providing learning to an off-campus
population. According to Moore's recounting, AIM impressed the British who
imported these ideas and used them to create the first Open University, now
called United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) to distinguish it from other
open universities which have emerged. UKOU was established in the late 1960s
and used television and radio as its primary delivery methodologies, thus placing
it in the forefront of applying emerging technologies to learning. It is fair to say
that all "open universities" use distance education technologies as delivery
methodologies. During this period Bernard Luskin also Chaired Project
Outreach in California. Outreach was a project that included the University of
California, California State University and the community colleges to identify
the characteristics of telecourses, get legislative authority to use public funds for
distance education through coordinated instructional systems and produce the
pilot demonstration telecourse.
In addition, there are many private and public, non-profit and for-profit
institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education.
Levels of accreditation vary; some institutions offering distance education in the
United States have received little outside oversight, and some may be fraudulent
diploma mills. In many other jurisdictions, an institution may not use the term
"University" without accreditation and authorisation, normally by the national
government. Online education is rapidly increasing among mainstream
universities in the United States, where online doctoral programs have even
developed at prestigious research institutions.
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In the twentieth century, radio, television, and the Internet have all been
used to further distance education. Computers and the Internet have made
distance learning distribution easier and faster. Private, for-profit University of
Phoenix, which is primarily an online university, now has two hundred thousand
students and expects to serve five hundred thousand by 2010, yet little is known
about student success or lack of success in such a fast-growing institution.
In 2006 the Sloan Consortium reported that more than 96 percent of the
largest colleges and universities in the United States offered online courses and
that almost 3.2 million U.S. students were taking at least one online course
during the fall 2005 term.
The Independent Study Option (ISO) provides the opportunity and
flexibility for both school-age and adult learners to study a wide range of
compulsory optional print based distance education courses from Grades 7 to 12.
This form of distance education also provides students with support by email or
phone. The Independent Study Option also offers several courses in French. In
the event that a student leaves the province on a temporary or permanent basis,
the ISO also provides the opportunity for continuing the study of Manitoba
curriculum en route to receiving a Senior Years graduation diploma (3136).
Text 18
How people laugh?
What is laughter? Can we really define what laughter is - except for some
abstract notions like "expression of merriment or amusement"? Nobody knows
how we have learnt to laugh. Did we copy our parents at a very young age? But then
we had to know how to differentiate various emotions. Anyway, everybody knows
how to laugh, though nobody is identical to another in his or her laughing-style.
Different people laugh differently. But we can hardly notice the peculiarity of
their laughing consciously: only in those cases when somebody produces something
extraordinary - it may be too loud, too hoarse, too quiet, too coarse and so on.
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Sometimes laughing has the opposite effect. Suppose you are chatting with your
chums. But there's something you don't like about one of them. You don't even
think about it, but prefer talking to the others. Sometimes you realize what you don't
like about the way somebody laughs: the sound may be too coarse and it is
unpleasant to hear, or too loud, so that you are even frightened a bit.
Watching the gestures and motions of the bodies of laughing people can be
great fun. You can try yourself and you'll certainly notice several typical
movements, like doubling up with laughter or throwing back one's head; you'll see
people trying to hide their faces not only behind their hands, but in the neighbour's
shoulder. Some people roar with laughter, opening wide their mouth, showing their
teeth and tongue, others giggle with their mouths closed because they probably feel
embarrassed about their teeth. In the latter case we can hear subdued laughter, which
can be characterized as "not loud, lacking in vitality".
Unfortunately, there are people who don't laugh at all; I mean that you can never
hear their laughter. Moreover you can hardly notice their rare smile. Actually that's
not OK, because you probably know that when we laugh special hormones are
formed (endorphins) in our blood; they are commonly called "hormones of pleasure", and that's why we feel relaxed and happy. That's why we like so much to
watch comedies after a long, hard day. Laugh to your heart's content every moment
you have the opportunity for it (2176).
Text 19
Montessori
The Montessori method is a child-centered, alternative educational
method based on the child development theories originated by Italian educator
Maria Montessori (1870–1952) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Primarily applied in preschool and primary (elementary) school
settings (and occasionally in infant, toddler, middle school, and high school), its
method of education is characterized by emphasizing self-directed activity, on
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the part of the child, and clinical observation, on the part of the teacher (often
called a director, directress, guide) — to stress the importance of adapting the
child‘s learning environment to his or her development level, and the role of
physical activity in the child‘s absorbing abstract concepts and learning practical
skills. Auto-didactic (self-correcting) equipment is used for introducing and
learning concepts, and reading is taught via phonics and whole language, the
comparative benefits of which are presently being recognized.
The Montessori name is famous, but not a trademark, and it is associated
with more than one organization. There are schools ―influenced by Montessori‖
bearing little resemblance, and which have received substantive criticism from
schools with a closer lineage to Montessori‘s work
Concepts
The Montessori educational philosophy is built upon the idea that
children develop and think differently from adults; that they are not merely
―adults in small bodies‖. Dr. Montessori advocated children's rights, children
working to develop themselves into adults, and that these developments would
lead to world peace.
The Montessori method discourages many of the traditional
measurements of achievement (grades, tests). The method instead focuses on
sparking a child's interest in learning through presenting materials to students
that will catch their interest. The Montessori Method does measure feedback and
qualitative analysis of a child‘s schooling performance. The analysis does not
come from grades, but from careful observation of the child (2047).
Text 20
External education – benefit or harm?
Экcmepнam is a special kind of school. The lessons there are given only two
or three times a week (as you wish), and they start not earlier then at 10 a.m.; not
to mention that there is the possibility to finish a school year in half the time of an
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average school. (It's possible to finish every form in only four months.) The school
year begins by the end of September, not on the 1st day of autumn. The home
tasks are small, compared with the tasks of an ordinary school; the teachers are not
so particular as in a usual school; so passing the exams is much easier, because
they give the opportunity of improving the result of a test, if you got an
unsatisfactory mark. (You are allowed to be re-examined a few times.) The other
advantage of external education is the number of pupils in a group: there are about
13-14 people in every group, so listening to the teacher is much easier and the
discipline in the class is much better than in an average school, to put it mildly.
And I can't help mentioning the other plus of this educational form - the subjects
are easier and the school programme includes only the main ideas of every topic,
without learning useless details. Well, you see that studying in Экcmepнam is easier
than in an ordinary school. But reading this article, you are probably thinking:
―Экcmepнam must have lots of minuses: it spoils children; they all become
irresponsible and lazy; they get less knowledge than they really need. Экcmepнam
is bad, really bad.‖
It's partly true, but only for those pupils who were not hard working in an
average school. But if you have made up your mind what you want to be in the
future; if you have chosen exactly the direction you need; go to the Экcmepнam, it
will help: you'll have much more free time and less obligations. As for me, I
suppose such a form of education is good enough. I finished school a month ago,
while most of my friends keep on studying nowadays. I'm satisfied with the
result of having studied in the Экcmepнam. My achievements there were good.
But my ex-classmate says that the Экcmepнam didn't meet his needs; it spoiled his
attitude to education, he became lazier, and left off working hard. People differ. So,
think a bit before entering the door of such a special school. It is right for you if
you're a diligent and conscientious person (2364).
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Text 21
Plato
Plato is the earliest important educational thinker. He saw education as the
key to creating and sustaining his Republic. He advocated extreme methods:
removing children from their mothers' care and raising them as wards of the
state, with great care being taken to differentiate children suitable to the various
castes, the highest receiving the most education, so that they could act as
guardians of the city and care for the less able.
For Plato the individual was best served by being subordinated to a just
society. Plato's belief that talent was distributed non-genetically and thus must
be found in children born in any social class. His belief moves us away from
aristocracy as a political system. He builds on this by insisting that those
suitably gifted are to be trained by the state so that they may be qualified to
assume the role of a ruling class. What this establishes is essentially a system of
selective public education premised on the assumption that an educated minority
of the population are, by virtue of their education (and inborn educability),
sufficient for healthy governance. Today's tracking systems could be justified
with Plato's ideas.
Plato's writings contain some of the following ideas: Elementary
education would be confined to the guardian class till the age of 18, followed by
two years of compulsory military training and then by higher education for those
who qualified. While elementary education made the soul responsive to the
environment, higher education helped the soul to search for truth which
illuminated it. Both boys and girls got the same kind of education. Elementary
education consisted of music and gymnastics, designed to train and blend gentle
and fierce qualities in the individual and create a harmonious person.
At the age of 20, a selection was made. The best one would take an
advanced course in mathematics, geometry, astronomy and harmonics. The first
course in the scheme of higher education would last for ten years. It would be
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for those who had a flair for science. At the age of 30 there would be another
selection; those who qualified would study dialectics and metaphysics, logic and
philosophy for the next five years. They would study the idea of good and first
principles of being. After accepting junior positions in the army for 15 years, a
man would have completed his theoretical and practical education by the age of
50. (2403)
Text 22
TEENAGERS
The early adolescent years, from about 12 to 14, are a period of great
change. Physical growth is more rapid than at any other time, and sexuality enters
the frame. Parents often complain of feeling that their child has become a stranger in
their home, forgetting that the child may feel quite a stranger to himself. Hormones
are raging, he may feel tearful, elated, excited. There is an enormous preoccupation
with the body and its sensations, and with appearances.
Adolescents are often tearful and, if they are close enough to their parents
to speak to them, will communicate their bewilderment: "I'm sad,"; "I feel lonely";
"Nobody likes me at school"; "Everybody laughs at me", followed by "but I don't
know why". Even if all the evidence is to the contrary - friends telephoning, the
child being admired and his company sought - these feelings of insecurity and
isolation are real.
Another puzzle is how different he can feel from one day to the next. His
moods and self-image sway like branches in the wind. And because the adolescent
fluctuates between being quite mature and being infantile, parents get wrongfooted. If you talk to the young child in him, the adolescent may criticize you for
being patronizing, for not trusting him. If you treat him as an adult, he may feel
pushed and uncared for. Whichever aspect of him you talk to, it seems that you fail
to take the other into account. The issue of saying "no" and setting limits become
delicate, and many families feel that they are failing.
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